The Orchestra 2025 Winter/Spring Season Includes Performances At Carnegie Hall and More
The season begins on February 8, and continues through May 18.
By: A.A. Cristi Jan. 07, 2025
The Orchestra Now (TŌN) begins its winter/spring, 10th anniversary season led by music director Leon Botstein on February 8, and continues through May 18 with performances at Carnegie Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Peter Norton Symphony Space, and the Fisher Center at Bard College.
Highlights include a concert of orchestral transcriptions of works by Beethoven, Chopin, and Smetana (Carnegie Hall, February 11); two performances as part of TŌN's Sight & Sound series at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, one featuring music by Schumann and artwork by Caspar David Friedrich (April 13), and a second all-Fauré program alongside artwork by John Singer Sargent (May 18); and a special event collaboration with the dancers of American Ballet Theatre Studio Company (Fisher Center at Bard, February 28–March 1).
Marking the Orchestra's first visit abroad during its 10th anniversary, TŌN performs two concerts: one at the Koblenz IMUKO Festival (Internationale Musik-Kontakte) (Koblenz, May 6); and the second commemorating the end of the Second World War in Europe 80 years ago and performed in a concert hall built on the same grounds where the Nazi regime was rallying (Nuremberg, May 8).
Carnegie Hall, STERN AUDITORIUM / PERELMAN STAGE
Tuesday, February 11, 2025, at 7 PM
Leon Botstein, conductor
Mily Balakirev: Chopin Suite
Bedřich Smetana (orch. Szell): From My Life (String Quartet in E Minor)
Beethoven (orch. Weingartner): Hammerklavier (Piano Sonata No. 29)
TŌN performs three orchestral transcriptions of works by master composers Beethoven, Chopin, and Smetana. In 1910, the last year of his life, Russian composer and pianist Mily Balakirev transcribed four pieces into an orchestral suite to celebrate the centenary of Chopin's birth. To honor another centenary in 1927, that of Beethoven's death, Austrian conductor and composer Felix Weingartner crafted a full orchestration of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 29, the Hammerklavier. While teaching composition at Mannes College of Music in 1940, acclaimed Hungarian-born American conductor George Szell created an orchestral transcription of Smetana's E-minor String Quartet, From My Life.
Tickets, priced at $25–$50, are available online at carnegiehall.org, by calling CarnegieCharge at 212.247.7800, or at the Carnegie Hall box office at 57th & Seventh Avenue.
SIGHT & SOUND SERIES AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, GRACE RAINEY ROGERS AUDITORIUM
The Orchestra Now explores the parallels between orchestral music and the visual arts. Each performance includes a discussion with conductor and music historian Leon Botstein accompanied by on-screen exhibition images and live musical excerpts, followed by a full performance of the works and an audience Q&A.
Schumann & Friedrich: Nature in Music & Art
Sunday, April 13, 2025, at 2 PM
Leon Botstein, conductor
Schumann: Symphony No. 3, in E-flat major, Op. 97 “Rhenish”
Artwork by Caspar David Friedrich and others.
As the German Romantic movement took hold in the early 19th century, artists of all types began examining the relationship between nature and the human soul. Painter Caspar David Friedrich, widely considered the most important German artist of the era, portrayed nature as a setting for spiritual encounters. His compatriot, the renowned composer Robert Schumann, also took inspiration from the natural world. Upon moving to Düsseldorf along the Rhine River, he wrote his Third Symphony, which he titled the Rhenish.
The exhibition Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature will be on view at The Met Fifth Avenue February 8–May 11, 2025.
Sunday, May 18, 2025, at 2 PM
Leon Botstein, conductor
Benjamin Truncale, tenor
Gabriel Fauré:
Shylock Suite, Op. 57
Masques et bergamasques, Op. 112
Pavane, Op. 50
Artwork by John Singer Sargent and others.
Artist John Singer Sargent was 18 years old when his family moved to Paris, and within only a few years made a name for himself within a “painters' row” on the Left Bank, becoming one of the best portrait artists in France by age 23. He soon moved to the more cosmopolitan Right Bank, where he painted the infamous “Madame X” and took steady commissions from wealthy patrons. Meanwhile, Gabriel Fauré was hitting a turning point in his career in Paris; several of his works were premiered at the Société nationale de musique, and he eventually became head of the Paris Conservatoire. Both artists successfully merged the end of Romanticism with the dawn of Modernism. The concert features young tenor and recent Juilliard graduate Benjamin Truncale, currently pursuing his Master of Music degree at Bard College Conservatory.
The exhibition Sargent and Paris will be on view at The Met Fifth Avenue April 27–August 3, 2025.
Tickets, priced at $30–$50, include same-day museum admission and may be purchased online at metmuseum.org, by calling The Met at 212.570.3949, or at The Great Hall box office at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
FREE CONCERT SERIES
Joan Tower & Tchaikovsky's 5th
Sunday, March 23, 2025, at 4 PM
Peter Norton Symphony Space
Zachary Schwartzman, conductor
Raman Ramakrishnan, cello
David Serkin Ludwig: Fanfare for Sam
Joan Tower: A New Day
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64
Conductor Zachary Schwartzman opens the program with the Fanfare for Samuel Barber by David Serkin Ludwig, nephew of the late Peter Serkin, a Bard Conservatory faculty member. Cellist Raman Ramakrishnan, a founding member of the Daedalus Quartet and Bard Conservatory faculty member, joins TŌN for A New Day, a recent composition by another Bard Conservatory faculty member, the renowned Joan Tower. The concert concludes with Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony.
Tickets are FREE and available online with RSVP at ton.bard.edu.
THE FISHER CENTER AT BARD COLLEGE, SOSNOFF THEATER
Transcription as Translation: A Carnegie Hall Preview Concert
Saturday, February 8, 2025, at 7 PM
Sunday, February 9, 2025, at 2 PM
Leon Botstein, conductor
Mily Balakirev: Chopin Suite
Bedřich Smetana (orch. Szell): From My Life (String Quartet in E Minor)
Beethoven (orch. Weingartner): Hammerklavier (Piano Sonata No. 29)
See February 11 program notes above
Spring Benefit: TŌN + ABT Studio Company
The Fisher Center at Bard College, Sosnoff Theater
Friday, February 28, 2025, at 7:30 PM
Saturday, March 1, 2025, at 7:30 PM
Charles Barker, conductor
American Ballet Theatre Studio Company
Tarantella: George Balanchine, choreography; Music by Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Crimson Flame: Madison Brown, choreography; Music by Philip Glass
Birthday Variations (Pas de Deux): Gerald Arpino, choreography; Music by Giuseppe Verdi
Night Falls: Brady Farrar, choreography; Music by Frederic Chopin
Swan Lake Act III (Pas de Deux): Kevin Mckenzie, choreography, after Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov; Music by Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky
Human: Yannick Lebrun, choreography; Music by Blick Bassy
U Don't Know Me: Houston Thomas, choreography; Music by Avro Pärt
Plus additional works to be announced.
Two of New York's finest artistic training programs join forces as the graduate musicians of The Orchestra Now welcome the dancers of American Ballet Theatre Studio Company to the Fisher Center at Bard for a performance of music and dance.
Saturday, April 5, 2025, at 7 PM
Sunday, April 6, 2025, at 2 PM
The Fisher Center at Bard College, Sosnoff Theater
Leon Botstein, conductor
Miles Wazni, clarinet
Kaija Saariaho: Laterna Magica
Carl Maria von Weber: Clarinet Concerto No. 2 in E-flat major, Op. 74
Albéric Magnard: Symphony No. 4
The final performance of TŌN’s 10th season at the Fisher Center begins with Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s Laterna Magica (The Magic Lantern), inspired by filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s autobiography of the same name, and commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic and the Lucerne Festival. As she read the book, Saariaho said her composition was inspired by “the Laterna Magica, the first machine to create the illusion of a moving image: as the handle turns faster and faster, the individual images disappear and instead the eye sees continuous movement.” The work’s 2009 world premiere was given by the Berlin Philharmonic and Simon Rattle. The Orchestra is then joined by clarinetist Miles Wazni, a winner of the 2023 Bard Conservatory Concerto Competition, for Carl Maria von Weber’s virtuosic three-movement Clarinet Concerto No. 2, written for the notable clarinetist Heinrich Baermann, the soloist at the 1813 premiere. The concert closes with composer Albéric Magnard’s final symphony. Often referred to as the “French Bruckner,” his work is fully rooted in late 19th-century French Romantic tradition. Magnard became a national hero in 1914 when he died defending his property from German invaders.
Tickets are available online at fishercenter.bard.edu, or by calling the Fisher Center at 845.758.7900.
THE ORCHESTRA NOW IN GERMANY
TŌN performs two concerts in Germany, marking the Orchestra’s first visit abroad on the occasion of its 10th anniversary. The May 6 concert in Koblenz is part of the Koblenz IMUKO Festival (Internationale Musik-Kontakte), which has a dedicated focus on multicultural engagement, bringing together artists from different genres and cultures to perform, collaborate, and share their musical traditions to strengthen a sense of global community. The featured soloist is acclaimed cellist Benedict Kloeckner.
The May 8 performance in Nuremberg, at the invitation of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, commemorates the date exactly 80 years ago, when the Second World War in Europe ended in 1945. The memorial concert features music by Mendelssohn, whose music was banned during the Nazi era owing to his Jewish heritage. By featuring Mendelssohn’s music, the concert seeks to recall the hope that the 1945 victory in Europe over Nazism would bring peace and tolerance in a new world without war. The program spotlights Polish violinist Anna Reszniak, concertmaster of the Nürnberger Symphoniker, and award-winner of the Poznan Wieniawski Competition and the Sion-Valais Shlomo Mintz competitions, among many others.
The May 8 concert in Nuremberg will be broadcast live on German radio by Bayerischer Rundfunk.
Tuesday, May 6, 2025, at 7:30 PM
Koblenz, Germany, Rhein-Mosel Halle
Leon Botstein, conductor
Benedict Kloeckner, cello
Max Bruch: Adagio on Celtic Melodies for cello and orchestra, Op. 56
Robert Schumann: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 97, “Rhenish”
Max Bruch: Ave Maria for cello and orchestra, Op. 61
Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 5, “Reformation”
Thursday, May 8, 2025, at 8:00 PM
Nuremberg, Germany, Musiksaal der Kongresshalle
Leon Botstein, conductor
Anna Reszniak, violin
Chamber Choir of the Nuremberg University of Music, directed by Peter Dijkstra
All-Felix Mendelssohn Program:
Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64
Symphony No. 5 in D major/D minor, Op. 107, “Reformation”
Choral Cantata Verleih uns Frieden
Commemorative concert to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II
Under the patronage of the Lord Mayor of the City of Nuremberg, Marcus König
Live broadcast by Bayerischer Rundfunk
For detailed information about the 2024-25 season, visit ton.bard.edu.
Comments
Videos